Japan has Shohei Ohtani fever as thousands pay to see Los Angeles Dodgers train
Fans pay 2,000 yen to watch players work out at Tokyo Dome before next week’s Major League Baseball season-openers against Chicago Cubs
Thousands of paying fans in Tokyo clapped and cheered as they watched Shohei Ohtani make a brief appearance in practice with his Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday ahead of the Major League Baseball season-opener.
Ohtani is a hero back home in Japan and fans paid 2,000 yen (US$13) each to watch the 30-year-old and his teammates go through their paces at the Tokyo Dome, which will stage two matches next week against the Chicago Cubs.
Ohtani, who is playing in Japan for the first time as a Dodger since joining the club at the end of 2023, went through a brief workout lasting about 10 minutes.
The stadium where Ohtani saw his first baseball game as a child and which seats around 45,000 was about a third full.
Ohtani said the games would be a celebration of Japanese baseball talent, with the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki and the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga and Seiya Suzuki also in action.